Turku 1000
Stop 27 of 50
1827

The Great Fire of Turku

On the evening of 4 September 1827 a wooden house caught fire on a hill in Turku. Eighteen hours later three-quarters of Finland’s largest town was ashes, more than 11,000 people were homeless, and centuries of Finnish history had burned with the archives.

Empire · Grand Duchy

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The night Turku burned: 4–5 September 1827 in 28 seconds.Drawn with code for this site. A schematic view, not to scale; the order of events follows the text below, the times are approximate.
The big story

The Great Fire of Turku

Turku had burned many times before, for example in 1681 (stop 18). But the fire of September 1827 was different. In one night and one day it destroyed most of the town, the Cathedral’s interior, the university and the country’s archives. Afterwards Turku was never quite the same, and neither was Finland.

A spark in the evening

  • Where it began. Shortly before nine in the evening on 4 September 1827, fire broke out in the house of the burgher Carl Gustav Hellman on Aninkaistenmäki hill Well documented.
  • Why it began. Nobody knows for certain. One explanation is that sparks from a neighbour’s chimney set the house alight Likely.
  • The alarm. The Cathedral bells rang the alarm. People rushed out, but most of them tried to save their own houses and their own street Well documented.
  • A big wooden town. Turku was still Finland’s largest town, with about 12,500 inhabitants in 1815. Apart from the Cathedral, the castle and a few stone buildings, it was built of wood Well documented.

Eighteen hours

  • The northern quarter. The weather had been dry, and the wind grew stronger during the evening. The flames raced through a dense maze of wooden houses on the northern side of the river Well documented.
  • Across the river. Then the wind changed direction. During the night the fire crossed the Aura, sparks reached the Cathedral roof, and its burning tower rose like a torch above the town Well documented.
  • Too hot to stand. Near the Cathedral the storm of fire became so fierce that it was almost impossible to stay on your feet. The Academy building next to the Cathedral burned as well Well documented.
  • Under control. The next day, after raging for about 18 hours, the fire was finally brought under control Well documented.

Why couldn’t they stop it?

  • Too few hands. Many of the leading burghers and officials were away at a market in Tampere, so there were not enough people to organise the firefighting Well documented.
  • No help from the soldiers. The Russian garrison refused to help unless it was paid, and at first nobody dared to promise the money Well documented.
  • Weather and wood. Dry houses, narrow crooked streets and a strong, shifting wind made the fire almost impossible to stop with the buckets and hand tools of the time Likely.

The morning after

  • The human cost. More than 11,000 people lost their homes. 27 people died and hundreds were injured Well documented.
  • The Cathedral. Only the stone walls and the vaults were left. Even the church bells had melted Well documented.
  • Paper turned to ash. Most of Finland’s archives were kept in Turku, and practically all the country’s medieval documents burned. The university library was lost too, except for books that happened to be on loan outside the town Well documented.
  • An eyewitness in the sky. The astronomer Friedrich Argelander wrote in his logbook at the observatory: “Today observation was interrupted by a horrible fire that reduced Turku to ashes” Well documented.
How do we know?

Letters, official reports, church records and diaries such as Argelander’s logbook describe the fire. Many people also wrote down their memories later. The main facts agree, but some details, such as the cause and the exact number of buildings that burned, were never settled, and different sources give slightly different numbers.

AninkaistenmäkiCathedralAcademyGreat SquareVartiovuoriLuostarinmäkiRiver Aura← to the sea and the castle
  • Burning
  • Burned
  • Spared
Why did it spread so fast?

How the fire spread through Turku, 4–5 September 1827. Step through the night, then ask why it spread so fast.A schematic plan, not to scale. The burned areas are approximate.
Why it matters

The fire of 1827 ended Turku’s time as Finland’s centre of learning: within a year the university moved to Helsinki (stop 28). The town was rebuilt to a new, fire-safe plan with wide streets, which is still the shape of central Turku. And because the archives burned, historians of medieval Finland have far fewer documents than they would like. That is one reason why the earlier stops on this site so often have to say “we do not know”.

On the lighter side

What survived the fire

Walk through central Turku today and most of what you see was built after 1827. But not everything burned. A whole hill of wooden houses survived, and so did an observatory, the Cathedral’s walls and a few books that were in the right place at the right time.

Luostarinmäki: the town before the fire

  • A hill of wooden houses. Luostarinmäki was a district of small wooden houses where craftsmen and poorer families lived Well documented.
  • Spared. It lay at the southern edge of the town, which the fire did not reach. With 18 blocks, it is the largest area of old Turku that survived the fire in one piece Well documented.
  • People lived there for a long time. The idea of making it a museum came up in 1908, and the museum opened in 1940. The last resident, Hilma Mäenpää, lived there until 1982 Well documented.
  • A time machine. Today the Luostarinmäki Handicrafts Museum is the only place where you can still see what Turku looked like before the fire Well documented.

Survivors in stone and wood

  • The observatory. The observatory on Vartiovuori hill, near Luostarinmäki, was spared. Argelander was back at work on 9 September, and the Academy’s leaders held their meetings there because their own building had burned Well documented.
  • Qwensel House. A wooden town house from around 1700 stands on the west bank of the river, in the part of town that the fire missed. It is probably the oldest wooden house in central Turku, and today it holds the Pharmacy Museum Likely.
  • The castle. Turku Castle stood outside the town near the river mouth, and the fire did not reach it Well documented.

The Cathedral rises again

  • Treasures in the sacristy. The back part of the Cathedral’s sacristy survived. In it were some valuables, a few medieval wooden statues of saints and the reliquary of Blessed Bishop Hemming, which are now in the Cathedral Museum Well documented.
  • Back in use. Services moved to other churches for two years. The Cathedral reopened on 13 September 1829, with a new copper roof and pews, though work went on for years Well documented.
  • Engel and Ekman. C. L. Engel, the architect of Helsinki, designed the new top of the tower (1834) and the pulpit (1837). In the 1850s R. W. Ekman painted frescoes in the Cathedral, the first in Finland Well documented.
  • The old wall goes. The wall around the Cathedral and the buildings attached to it were pulled down and never rebuilt Well documented.

Lost forever

  • Folk poems. Earlier collections of Finnish folk poems, gathered by Carl Axel Gottlund and Zacharias Topelius the elder, burned. Elias Lönnrot started collecting a year later (stop 26) Well documented.
  • The theatre. Bonuvier’s theatre, the town’s theatre building from the 1810s, burned down. The theatre building that still stands, Åbo Svenska Teater, opened in 1839 Well documented.
  • The bells. The heat in the burning tower melted the Cathedral’s bells. New bells were hung in the rebuilt tower Well documented.
River Aura↙ Turku CastleLuostarinmäkiVartiovuoriCathedralAcademyQwensel House

Pick a pin on the map or something from the list.

Lost in the fire
Turku after the fire: what survived, what was damaged and what was lost. Click a pin or a name.A schematic plan, not to scale. Grey houses burned; light houses survived.
How do we know?

The survivors speak for themselves: Luostarinmäki, the observatory, Qwensel House and the Cathedral’s walls still stand, and the sacristy treasures are in the Cathedral Museum. For what was lost, we rely on lists and reports made after the fire, and on what is missing from the archives today.

Why it matters

What survived the fire is precious because so little did. Luostarinmäki lets you walk through the streets of the old wooden town, and the medieval treasures from the sacristy are some of the few objects left from Turku’s Middle Ages. The fire also shows why we should be grateful for anyone who borrows a book: in 1827 the books on loan were the only ones saved.

Sources and further reading

  1. Turku parishes. History of Turku Cathedral: the 19th century. The start of the fire, wind, firefighting, the market in Tampere, the garrison, damage to the Cathedral, the library and the restoration.
  2. Great Fire of Turku — Hellman’s house, the spread across the Aura, 11,000 homeless, 27 dead, Argelander’s logbook and the loss of the archives.
  3. Luostarinmäki — the largest area that survived the fire, 18 blocks, the museum of 1940 and the last resident.
  4. Turku Cathedral — damage in 1827 and the restoration of the 1830s.
  5. Qwensel House — the wooden town house from around 1700 and the Pharmacy Museum.
  6. Royal Academy of Turku — the main building damaged in 1827 and the move to Helsinki.
  7. Åbo Svenska Teater — Bonuvier’s theatre, which burned in 1827, and the new theatre of 1839.
  8. Kalevala Society. Elias Lönnrot’s Kalevala process: the folk poem collections lost in the fire of 1827.
  9. Turku — population in 1815 and 1850, and the new town plan after the fire.

Spotted a mistake? Know more?

This site is open and free. Corrections and additions are welcome — every page lists its sources so you can check them.